Today Fernández is a vice president of the executive committee of the Council of Ministers and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba. No longer on active duty, he is a brigadier general of the FAR.
This interview with Fernández was conducted in Havana, Cuba, on October 25, 1997, by Jack Barnes, Mary-Alice Waters, and Martín Koppel. Barnes and Waters were in Havana to participate in the October 21-23 international workshop on "Socialism as the 21st Century Approaches," sponsored by the Communist Party of Cuba, and to cover that conference for the socialist newsweekly the Militant and Spanish- language monthly Perspectiva Mundial. Barnes is national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party, and Waters is editor of the Marxist magazine New International. Koppel is editor of Perspectiva Mundial.
Interviews with two other veteran revolutionaries and high-ranking officers of the FAR conducted by the same reporters have appeared in recent issues of the Militant. An interview with Division General Néstor López Cuba was published in the June 22 issue. The July 6 issue featured an interview with Division General Enrique Carreras.
Copyright (c) 1998 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.
Waters: The book Secretos de generales (Secrets of generals) published here in Cuba this year is a valuable portrait of a cross section of leaders of the Cuban revolution.(1) The interviews have a real impact, especially on young workers and students who are attracted to the Cuban revolution and want to understand it better. It would be useful for our readers to know a little more about some of the things you describe in that book - how you became involved in the struggle against Batista before the revolution, as well as your responsibilities in building the new revolutionary army once the prior task of destroying the old regime had been achieved.
Fernández: I was imprisoned for three years during the struggle against Batista. I had been part of a movement formed in early 1956 by young officers mainly from the military schools and the Havana garrison. We attempted to overthrow Batista and restore the bourgeois democracy that had existed here. Although the scope of the 1940 constitution of the Republic of Cuba was quite advanced it was never enforced, as you know.
The March 10 military coup was prepared and organized by a group of active-duty army and navy officers neither whose ideas nor records augured anything good for the country in any way.(2) They were joined by a large group of retired officers who came from the post-1933 years when Batista was the strongman in Cuba, a disgraceful past. The coup was supported by some venal politicians with ties to Batista and his theft and corruption in the previous epochs.
After March 10, there were a good number of officers who had not been able to prevent the coup, but did not accept it nevertheless. Small groups of conspirators spontaneously began to develop. They were sometimes diverted by the ebb and flow of promises that, from time to time, appeared to offer a political solution to the conditions Batista's March 10 coup had created in the republic.
As time went on, it became clear that no political solution was possible, that Batista would enact no change or reform that would benefit the people. With the sole aim of personal enrichment, he arrogantly and intransigently held on to power. As opposition grew, the regime became crueler and more bloodthirsty.
After the electoral farce of 1954, which sought to legalize the position of Batista, he was formally inaugurated as president in early 1955.(3) The small groups that had arisen spontaneously started to coalesce. On April 4, 1956, a military movement, which the people referred to as "los puros" - "the pure ones" - tried to topple Batista. It failed and a large number of those involved were sent to prison; others went into exile, retired, left the army, or were transferred to distant commands. The measures taken against particular individuals depended on the extent of one's supposed support to the Batista regime, or the degree of sympathy one allegedly had with the movement being born.
When the revolution triumphed, I joined the Rebel Army with the same rank I held previously, first lieutenant. Since I was a trained professional (and I say this with no vanity), I was given the task of helping to train the Rebel Army - more than to train it actually, to help transform the Rebel Army and the Revolutionary Armed Forces in general.(4)
The Rebel Army had a few thousand men who had fought against the army of Batista's tyranny. Their numbers had multiplied in the final days of December 1958 and continued multiplying in the first days of January, attracted by the prestige and authority that the Rebel Army had achieved through the armed struggle, and by the revolutionary honesty of the guerrilla leaders under the command of Fidel Castro. There was great hope that this army would be both the guardian of the revolution and the base of support for the gigantic task that lay ahead to transform the society and its political, economic, and social system; to preserve our sovereignty; and to impose a code of honor and ethics in public affairs. All this, I repeat, gave the Rebel Army popularity, sympathy, and great prestige. Many thousands of young people were attracted toward it, as well as others of all ages, and the revolution really needed that.
This was a very complex period. The Rebel Army, fulfilling the tasks that fell to it by law, was replacing Batista's corrupt army of 80,000 men. It benefited from its reputation as a patriotic army defending the people, a reputation it continues to consolidate. Both the Rebel Army and the people repudiated the army that had served Batista, an army that committed crimes and abuses right up to the fall of the tyranny.
At the beginning of the period immediately following the triumph of the revolution, there was not, in general, a clear and firm consciousness of the need for structures, for discipline, for the norms indispensable to a modern-day military force. The members of the Rebel Army -although excellent combatants who had been capable of defeating the corrupt army of the Batista tyranny - needed training along these lines. It was essential to organize and train these cadres in the handling of weapons, in tactics, in combat engineering, in communications, and in all those specific areas of knowledge that are essential for any armed force.
It was a very interesting, a very important process, in which Raúl [Castro], minister of the armed forces since the early days, played a decisive role. He is a revolutionary with a tremendous sense of organization, discipline, and an understanding of the need for technical training. He is very methodical - very persistent in working continuously on whatever is important for a given task.
`War of the entire people'
As you know, Fidel is commander in chief, a position he has held since the Sierra Maestra.(5) As president of the Council of State, he is also, by law, supreme commander of the armed forces. He lays out the strategic lines. The concept of the war of the entire people is Fidel's, for example; it is the guiding philosophy of our armed forces today. We don't aim to crush an invasion, or an armed attack by whatever great power - I'm not mentioning names - with our armed forces alone. Our armed forces are powerful, but all the people are needed to inflict such a defeat. A defeat like the one suffered by Joseph Bonaparte's army in Spain.(6) A fighting spirit like that of the Vietnamese. The aim is that the adversary, the invader, will see in each citizen an enemy who, through ambushes and continuous attacks, allows no respite; that each citizen makes sure the invaders never feel safe. That's why we say we are unconquerable.
We can arm considerably more than one million people - sufficiently trained and organized. The armed forces have been reduced in numbers in recent years, without sacrificing their combat capability. Our weapons are in good condition and are adequately distributed and protected. Training remains solid, and our reserves keep growing. Morale is high and we are determined to win, as Fidel and Raúl have taught us. Men and women, the entire people, form a shield that makes the revolution invincible.
Fidel and Raúl know, just as you do, that the primary force is the individual human being - a will to fight, a love of country, a sense of honor and duty. To be determined to fight, a man or woman must be convinced of why they're doing so. In our case the people fight to defend a society where there is no racial discrimination; where the role of women has been expanded and continues to grow; where education - I would say an exemplary education - is free and available to the entire people; where there is a public health care system that, despite shortages, maintains a low infant mortality rate and a high life expectancy, and that treats and fights diseases in a way comparable to any developed country. A country where there is social security that has left no one destitute, in spite of the economic crisis. A more just society, where those of us who shoulder responsibilities dress, eat, and work the same as the people as a whole, with great modesty; where there are no special food rations or other privileges.
A country with a democracy, where the entire people participate in making important decisions; where the entire people participate, in the most direct way conceivable, in electing those who govern.
A country where we have defended our sovereignty, where love of country and defense of the national flag are paramount and where the first requirement is loyalty to the country, loyalty to the socialist revolution. That is the first requirement, one that cannot be replaced by anything of a technical character.
We live in a world where we deeply need these convictions and practices in order to be able to fight and win.
Participating in a modest way in building the Rebel Army in the early years, as I did, coming to be vice minister of the armed forces with Raúl under the leadership of Fidel, has been the true fulfillment of my life; this is what has given it meaning. The fact that I was able to participate in the armed struggle in defense of the country at Girón has contributed greatly to this personal fulfillment.(7)
Finally, I can say that today the armed forces, at the head of the people and under the leadership of our party, constitute a formidable enemy for any adversary. We are not looking for war with anybody. But whoever attacks us, if he doesn't die, will have to retreat after one, three, five, ten years of fighting us, or our children, or our grandchildren. We defend the sovereignty of the country and socialism. This is what we fight for. This is what we work for unstintingly.
October 1962 `Missile Crisis'
Barnes: Perhaps we could raise a question about the
October Crisis.(8) We are commemorating the thirty-fifth
anniversary of those days right now, and understanding the
lessons of that crisis is an important question for us in
the United States.
Fernández: And a difficult one for me, since I did not participate in it directly.
Barnes: Some of the previously classified documents and tape recordings from the Kennedy administration that have been released over the past few years give new evidence of what communists in the United States have always explained to the American people about the October Crisis. What we said as youth - demonstrating against U.S. government war moves in the streets of Los Angeles, of Chicago, of Minneapolis, and elsewhere - has been confirmed.
As you know, the story as told by most of the capitalist media and politicians in the United States is that [U.S. president John] Kennedy and [Soviet premier Nikita] Khrushchev saved the world from nuclear war, in spite of Cuba. We've always said no. It was Cuba, the Cuban people, the FAR that saved the world from nuclear war. Through their courage and determination, they made Kennedy understand there were limits to aggression beyond which his administration would have had to pay too great a price politically.
We have always explained that the Kennedy White House had been stepping up plans to invade Cuba throughout the entire period leading up to the crisis, and it initially seized on deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba as the pretext to do so. But the documents that are now being published show that when Kennedy asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff for an estimate of the casualties that could be expected from an invasion of Cuba, they responded with the figure of more than 18,000 dead and wounded American soldiers in just the first ten days! At that moment Kennedy, who was not a military dictator but simply a politician facing the American people under conditions of bourgeois democracy, began looking for other options. It was that estimate of the armed resistance U.S. forces would face in Cuba that made Kennedy begin looking to find a way out.
You can now follow all the White House discussions, day by day, hour by hour, in the transcripts of tape recordings of meetings in Kennedy's offices. Even better, you can listen to the tapes themselves at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. You can hear the pauses, the inflections that are sometimes more expressive than the words.
We educate young fighters in the United States to understand that revolutionists must study the past in order to be prepared to act in all situations - and 1962 will not be the last "October Crisis." Times are coming when the working class will once again confront nuclear or other forms of blackmail from the capitalist exploiters and war makers, and revolutionists must know how to stand firm and prevent the rulers from wreaking their destruction.
When two small planes that took off from Miami were shot down over Cuban territory in February 1996, we explained that this was not some new policy course.(9) The decision had been made and announced to the world by Fidel many years earlier during the October Crisis. "You cannot violate Cuba's sovereignty," the Cuban people and their leadership said. "We will stand." And it's very important to demonstrate that resolve whenever the aggressors begin new probes.
That's how we try to educate workers and youth in the United States about the October Crisis. We would appreciate any thoughts or opinions you have about it.
Fernández: You have said something that is very true: prepare ourselves well for war, so we can win peace. If we didn't have the military power that we do, we would have been attacked. I have no doubt about that. Girón was an alert, but in more recent years there have been other warning signals. The danger - as attested to not only by attacks and sabotage but by systematic threats and a consistent pattern of hostile acts - has led us to maintain our defense capacity in readiness and to continuously increase and improve it.
At the request of the legitimate government of Angola, Cuban forces fought against an invasion backed by several capitalist powers that had penetrated more than one thousand kilometers into Angolan territory.(10) History will one day recognize that in winning the liberation of Namibia and putting an end to apartheid, an important role was played by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces - which fought in Angola alongside the armed forces of that country, assisting those who had long struggled for such an outcome. We have to say that the decisive victories in the air and on land were won by these troops.
Our forces in Ethiopia, defending that country against Somali intervention, did the same thing as in Angola.(11) It was no accident that our armed forces were capable of fighting and defeating well-organized armies. We are convinced of this and we deeply admire those internationalist combatants who fought in defense of the sovereignty of others.
We maintain a firm position, a principled position. We do not lie, and we always fight and argue armed with the truth. We keep our people informed. This has been an important factor. The Rebel Army in the Sierra Maestra set an example of truthfulness, of ethical conduct, of respect for the integrity of prisoners.
I remember when a U-2 was shot down during the October Crisis.(12) The U-2 was downed because the commander of the Soviet antiaircraft missile forces who was here, without waiting for instructions from Moscow, complied with the order given to the Cuban antiaircraft batteries, to fire on low-flying planes, and it shot down the U-2.
U.S. planes began flying low over various military installations and areas where our troops were positioned. They had been warned that "beginning in the morning we will shoot at anything that flies overhead." When we started to shoot the flights stopped.
In other words, we must have right on our side, and we have to be firm and intelligent in order to defend it. History will one day record that few statesman in the modern epoch of humanity have had the talent, wisdom, courage, and sense of the moment that Fidel has had in defending the revolution.
For almost forty years we have been navigating along the edge of a possible attack, firmly defending our sovereignty, the revolution, and socialism. And we have maintained a course that has proved capable of defending our principles while avoiding a war.
There is a somewhat defiant billboard in front of the U.S. Interests Section, and it can be read a number of different ways.(13) But I like to view it as saying what we truly feel: That we are not the least bit afraid of you. It shows we are ready to fight. It should not be seen as a provocation, but as a warning: Don't mess with us. We're small but we know how to defend ourselves, and we will defend ourselves. We have the means to do so, we will defend ourselves, and we will win.
I like very much what Comrade Barnes says; I have the same conviction. And I am convinced of something else. For Kennedy it was a political problem not to carry through with the invasion of Cuba in 1961 - and I'm not referring just to Kennedy, who inherited the invasion from Eisenhower. It was a political problem because of what those invading forces of Cubans armed, trained, and organized by the CIA represented and what they signified in Congress and in different spheres of U.S. political life. It was evident that one sector of the government and the CIA supported the invasion, but it was also clear that an invasion would have had a high political cost because of the number of casualties that the U.S. armed forces could suffer.
But U.S. administrations often understand how bad wars are only when the bodies of dead soldiers start coming back and public opinion starts clamoring. Until the bodies start arriving, war is not bad. It wasn't until body bags started arriving from Vietnam that [U.S. president] Lyndon Johnson began losing sleep, and others started thinking that a solution had to be found. The same thing happened in Korea - we forget about Korea now, but the same thing happened then.
I'm sure the people of the United States would not react the same way if the bodies were coming back from defending against an invasion of Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, or any other city. But people know and understand when a war is unjust, when the U.S. government is fighting a war outside its territory for hegemony or to advance economic interests.
When I was in a museum in China, I saw on display a statement by Gen. Mark Clark, who had been head of the U.S. Fifth Army in Italy during World War II and later served as commander of the troops in Korea. Following the Korean War, he made a statement that he had the sad honor to sign the peace after the first military defeat of the United States.(14)
The death of every single man hurts us; we take care of every family and every person. We wish no one had to die. But unfortunately we have had thousands of deaths - in the struggle against Batista; in the repression by Batista's forces in the streets of all the cities and in fields across Cuba and in the battles waged by the Rebel Army against the tyranny.
Later we faced the fight against the bandits.(15) I'm sure no one in the United States would deny that these bandits were an artificial creation of the CIA, children of the CIA. Just like the grouplets today in Cuba, some of whom seek to present themselves as political parties, often with five people. They receive financial backing from the United States. But those people don't represent anything in Cuba, they're alien to the people. They are the representatives of a foreign power that supports, pays, and maintains them.
Let me make myself clear: I don't mean by this that there are no discontented people in Cuba, or people who disagree with socialism. I'm aware there are - in fact, there have to be. We have shortages, privations, difficulties. We run risks; there are dangers. There are people who are more consumer-oriented, who would like a more comfortable life, without struggles. There are people who perhaps, consciously or unconsciously, place a shirt, a pair of pants, or a car above the country's sovereignty or above social justice, and these people are clearly not enthusiastic about the revolution. That's one thing. But it's something completely different for there to be a sector of the population that has taken organizational form, or that can be given organizational form, that is represented by grouplets such as I described.
These are two different things. These grouplets represent no one, not even themselves, in fact. What they represent perhaps are those who pay them.
Popular support for revolution
We have just held elections.(16) I am the deputy of a
municipality in the interior of the country. So I can speak
about this process from experience, since I have lived
through it and have close ties to my municipality. Ninety-
seven point six percent of the population voted in the
elections held October 19. I believe Clinton was elected by
about 50 percent of 50 percent, by approximately 27 percent
of the eligible voters in the United States.
Here some ballots are left blank and others are intentionally spoiled; in these elections it came to 7.2 percent of the ballots cast. Some people, particularly those who are very old, vote for two or three candidates when they're only supposed to vote for one, for example. Others intentionally vote against, that's clear.
The vast majority of the people today support Fidel, socialism, and what Fidel and socialism represent: sovereignty, education, health care, social justice. There's no doubt about that.
Some of you were here the day of Che's funeral.(17) You saw how people lined the streets, in silence. It was truly exemplary. There was sincere homage to a person who gave his life for the ideals we are defending. It was an incredible thing, as was the ceremony in Santa Clara, which was very moving and impressive.
Our adversaries must know this. I believe the CIA knows it, the Pentagon knows it, and I also think Clinton knows it.
Raúl Castro and the FAR Barnes: I'd like to ask you a question about Raúl [Castro]. Raúl is a special target of propaganda in the United States. Fidel the U.S. rulers tried especially hard to assassinate; now they just hope as a mortal he goes away someday soon. With Che, they hope to sell some Che T-shirts, beer, and watches, and they pray that young people don't get too interested politically. But they are always going after Raúl. He is bad, maybe even worse than Fidel.
I've always been very struck by this. I was in Cuba in the summer of 1960 for several months, and I learned firsthand the leadership standing Raúl had earned in the Rebel Army and during the first year and half of the new revolutionary government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces. I think the U.S. rulers fear that continuity of the Cuban revolution. They fear the integrity of the army and its closeness to the Cuban people.
During the trial of General Ochoa and the others a number of years ago, I remember seeing some television footage from Cuba of the Military Court of Honor and of the review of the sentences by the Council of State.(18) One look at Raúl's face revealed the pain he felt because of what had happened in the Revolutionary Armed Forces, even if it was an isolated thing. Soon afterwards Furry [Gen. Abelardo Colomé Ibarra] was named to head the Ministry of the Interior,(19) and it seemed to us that the army was taking even more responsibility for the honor and the direction of the Cuban revolution.
So we would like to get out a little more of the truth about Raúl, whose place in the revolution is hidden from many, above all in the United States. And perhaps you could tell us how you view the responsibility of the armed forces in the march forward of the revolution, the honor and integrity of the FAR, and its internationalism.
Fernández: Raúl is a revolutionary with great human qualities, very strong principles, and firmness in the cause we defend. He is a hard worker, organized, systematic, and disciplined. He is very demanding in his work -above all of himself, and then of others. If Fidel was the founder of the Rebel Army and the creator of its strategic conception, Raúl has been the one who implements. Through his hard work and capacities over more than thirty years, he has organized a solid Revolutionary Armed Forces, politically firm, trained, and capable of defending the country, and above all, prepared to do so side by side with the people, who are an integral part of it. The FAR is very closely tied to the people. What Camilo(20) said is true: the armed forces are the people in uniform.
Raúl is a man like any other. Forceful but extraordinarily affable, he has a very Cuban personality; he communicates very well with the people; loves children; is capable of telling stories, making jokes, and enjoying them. He'll chat with somebody, then go to another person's house, and then go do something else. Young people like Raúl very much. When he shows up at a youth event he sparks a true show of enthusiasm.
Raúl is very sincere in what he says, and he has a deep sensibility in dealing with others. He has many friends, and he knows how to be a friend, a father, a comrade, and a firm and demanding political and military leader. And he has the talent and ability for the positions he holds, and for any others he might take on.
I am sure, as you said, that Raúl was deeply shaken by the Ochoa affair, above all, as well as by what happened in the Ministry of Interior. This was something unexpected. Human beings can fail, and that's what happened with Ochoa. He lost his way, made a profound mistake, conducted himself incorrectly, and created a complex and difficult situation by his behavior.
In that period the enemy accused Raúl and other leaders of the revolution of drug trafficking. Ochoa's behavior - the contacts he and his emissaries had made, the acts they had carried out - compromised the integrity of the country's name.
Regardless of the prestige Ochoa may have had, he was never an outstanding leader of the army. He was a man with personal merits, known as a general who had played a certain role, but this did not alter the fact that measures had to be taken, and that they had to be strong ones, in accordance with the gravity of the deeds committed. As a member of the Council of State at the time, I took personal responsibility for those measures. I had to give an opinion, and I did so with conviction and without reservations.(21)
Cuba has been against drugs from day one. In fact, drugs are practically unknown among the people here. In the 1980s, when I was minister of education, I visited a Latin American country. When the minister of education of that country asked me what we were doing to fight drugs in the schools, I had to ask him twice: Which schools are you talking about? In primary and secondary school, he responded. I was appalled that an eleven- or twelve-year-old child could have access to drugs and be allowed to use them.
Bourgeois armies and revolutionary armies
Waters: It would be useful to return to a point you made
earlier about the difference between a bourgeois army and a
revolutionary army - the difference in the treatment of
soldiers, and the relations between soldiers and officers.
Fernández: As a rule, a bourgeois army imposes its command, with some variation, through law, through established norms based exclusively on hierarchy and rank. A socialist army, our army, also uses norms and requires obedience. But discipline is achieved through conscious methods, and the commanding officers derive their authority from the consent of their subordinates; they earn that authority every day by their ability, work, and example.
In this army nobody can give orders who is not respected, who does not have the approval of one's subordinates. Command, clearly, isn't conferred by elections, but it's essential to have the consent and approval of one's subordinates. The army requires very strict discipline; there can be no concessions on that. But it must be very just, very humane, and maintain the highest moral values.
There have been tremendous abuses in other armies we know, or have known. To me, the attitudes that exist in the U.S. Marine Corps and among its instructors are often bestial; they're often criminal, inhumane, and unworthy. They are truly contemptible in a military institution. I'm not talking about the young people who have drowned in the swamps. I'm talking about the dehumanizing and denigrating methods of treating young people. That is unacceptable. That is an example of the difference between the two types of armies.
When someone who exercises authority or enforces discipline must do so, this often rankles those who are the objects of the command. You have to remember, however, that in our armed forces there are the units of the party; there are units of the UJC [Union of Young Communists]. These organizations strive for discipline and at the same time defend and guarantee the rights of individuals. There are places where one may speak frankly and say everything, regardless of rank. That doesn't happen in other armies.
Battle in the Escambray
Barnes: You referred earlier to the fight against the
bandits in the Escambray? Could we return to that?
During the conference that Mary-Alice and I took part in here, Compañero Balaguer(22) talked about the generation of leaders that won their spurs not in the struggle against Batista, but at Girón, and in fighting to clean the bandits out of the Escambray. But the Escambray is a chapter of the revolutionary struggle that is very little known in the United States today.
It's important for revolutionaries in the United States to learn about this. Many of us spent time in Nicaragua, and we closely followed the Nicaraguan revolution. We watched with concern as we saw methods being used there to defeat the U.S.-organized counterrevolutionary forces evolve in a manner that finally compromised the Sandinistas' ability to win the political battle in the countryside. For that reason, among others, the question of the Escambray is very important for workers and youth who try to draw lessons from the Cuban revolution.
Fernández: I only participated in the Escambray on two occasions. Each time it was for one week, commanding some special unit that had been called up to fight there. But the battalions under my command that were training in Havana, at least those from the militias, were the principal forces in the mission to eliminate the bandits in the Escambray.
The fight in the Escambray was conducted mainly by the militia units. The Escambray was an artificial situation created by U.S. agencies in late 1960 and early 1961 to promote subversion in Cuba. One of its aims was to provoke general uprisings and convert them into a force that would coincide in time and place and would cooperate with the invading brigade that landed at Playa Girón, which was initially scheduled to land at Trinidad.
Pardon me for a second. [Fernández goes to get a map.]
This is a tourist map of Cuba - the country is 1,200 kilometers [744 miles] from east to west, 100 kilometers [62 miles] from north to south, on average. Here is Trinidad, where the Girón landing was originally going to be. Kennedy was against it, since it's next to a city and was going to be too much of a scandal. That's part of history; it's in all the books.
Instead, the landing took place here, [pointing to the map] at Playa Girón in the Bay of Pigs. And the Escambray [pointing] is here. In other words, promoting counterrevolutionary groups in the Escambray was part of the preparation for the invasion and was timed to coincide precisely with the landing. The Escambray was to serve as a base of support, creating a zone that could be dominated by the invading brigade and by enemy forces in general. The invasion force left from here [pointing to the map] - from Nicaragua. They had trained in Guatemala. Then they moved over to Puerto Cabezas on Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast, and from there they were originally going to come to this place, to Trinidad.
The CIA created those groups with the support of Cuban agents. The Florida station of the CIA was at that time the largest in the world - that's a recorded fact in the CIA's own books, not in our imagination. Many Cubans who had abandoned the country joined the mercenary force: many former officers of the old army; sons of landowners, of rich people; extended families of the bourgeoisie; and also a fair number of lumpen. They were paid as soldiers, at wages that were high for the time. They were recruited in Miami and sent to Guatemala, where they formed a brigade.
The command of all the battalions in the invading brigade, and all the company commanders, were former officers of the old army. When we took them prisoner, I knew all the commanding officers by name. A good number of them had been my students before the revolution, when I was an instructor and assistant director of the school for cadets.
During the time there were bandits in the Escambray, planes flew over Cuba daily. There's a book called Operation Puma, in which a former air force captain of the old army explains how many flights he made on behalf of the CIA, dropping food, weapons, medicine, and communications equipment for the bandits in the Escambray. Those bands had no popular support, although it would be fair to say that some landowners from the area did back them. In many cases the support they received was obtained through coercion and terror.
The Rebel Army and the militia never killed a prisoner, tortured a prisoner, or abandoned a single wounded enemy soldier - not during the struggle in the Sierra, not in the struggle against the bandits, not at Girón. That is a matter of principle, of ethics, in our armed forces, one Fidel has strictly demanded from the beginning of the revolutionary struggle. And this was important during the struggle against Batista. There were soldiers who were taken prisoner two or three times. They would be taken prisoner, disarmed, turned over to the Red Cross, and a few months later they would be taken prisoner again. This demoralized Batista's army, because contrary to Batista's propaganda, which said the Rebel Army killed prisoners, whenever soldiers were in danger they preferred to put up their hands and turn over their weapons. And that earned the Rebel Army great authority.(23)
In December 1960 and January 1961 there was a great mobilization in Havana. Some 40,000 men mobilized into 40 battalions of almost a thousand each. A cordon, a physical barrier, was formed around the entire Escambray. Some militia members participated in that cordon for a month and a half, two months - militiamen with their weapons ready, protected from inclement weather only by nylon tarps, stayed firm, to prevent anyone from entering or leaving. The bands were practically eliminated. Thus, when the attack at Girón came, the invaders got no support either there or in the cities. Because in the cities, the Ministry of the Interior, the police, and the militias and the people were providing information: "So-and-so is not a revolutionary and is conspiring; he is meeting with others and they are conspiring against the revolution. Hold so-and-so in preventive detention." Whenever there were signs of counterrevolutionary activity, the persons would be detained, taken to the indoor sports complex, and watched, in the best possible conditions.
As a result, during the battle at Girón, in our rear guard, there was not a single enemy action. There was nothing, everything was calm. And that allowed us to conduct actions secure in our rear guard, and with great confidence.
When the battle was over at Girón, and people started being released from preventive detention, it turned out that among the detainees we had captured several CIA networks. That is, among those held in preventive detention for three days were persons who were counterrevolutionaries but against whom there was no proof they had done anything, and they were released. There were others, however, against whom there was proof of crimes committed, and they were brought before the tribunals.
In the Escambray today there is no trace of any trauma. No peasant can say his child was killed by the revolutionary forces, or that he was tortured for protecting a band of insurgents. Some of those insurgents knew people or had family in the Escambray.
Many resources were used to eliminate these bands armed by the CIA. There was a famous group that wanted to head off to the United States. A film about them was made here. A small boat was outfitted, flying the U.S. flag, with people aboard who spoke English. It approached the northern coast and flashed false messages to this group, and the leader boarded with his band. But it was actually a Cuban boat, stocked with U.S. cigars, soft drinks, whisky. Members of the band were told to go below to get their shots, since they had to be vaccinated to enter U.S. territory. When they went down the stairs, there were two members of the Rebel Army below who seized their weapons and took them prisoner. There are numerous anecdotes like this.
Bought and paid for by Washington
These gangs of bandits were always fed, paid, supplied,
and inspired by the United States, by its agencies of
espionage and subversion.
They focused on the Escambray, but there were counterrevolutionary gangs throughout the country - we estimate there were more than five thousand bandits, in small bands in various places. It was the Cuban people who wiped them out; the militias were the ones who mainly fought against these bands.
After the bandits had been defeated in the Escambray, we carried out a combination of political work and efforts to satisfy, to the best of our ability, the peasants' material needs. Today more than 95 percent of the housing units in Cuba have electricity - even though they may be isolated houses. The poverty-stricken thatch-roof, dirt-floor huts from before the revolution have disappeared. There are roads and telephones in many places. Peasants have schools, doctors, food supplies, and agricultural assistance.
There are 150,000 small farmers who have title to their land in Cuba. Their land rights have been and continue to be respected. We have taken many measures in the countryside. In 1994 and 1995 three million hectares [almost 7.5 million acres] of land - nearly half the land in cultivation in Cuba - were turned over to the Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPCs) that grow sugarcane, raise cattle, and cultivate fruit, along with growing many other crops.
We did not fight the counterrevolutionary bandits using criminal methods. Assistance was given to their families. If someone who died - including those who had betrayed the Rebel Army - had children in an isolated rural area, those children were offered scholarships. In other words, our revolution has had a deeply humane spirit, which in turn has increased its prestige.
We are sometimes accused of violating human rights. As our foreign minister [Roberto Robaina] has pointed out, this is part of a selective campaign carried out by our adversaries to create hostility against Cuba and undermine our prestige. As far as I am concerned, the first human right is the right to live, to receive an education, to live with dignity, to have the possibility of always receiving health care, to a job, to hold a place in society based on one's capacities, technical training, talent, and desires. And to have a right to a country that exists with dignity, as a sovereign nation.
Not a single prisoner has been tortured here in Cuba; not a single person has disappeared - not one, in thirty- eight years. Who among those who accuse us of human rights violations, or who act as accomplices by voting to condemn us, could raise their hand and say the same thing? We do not permit anyone to be mistreated for reasons of sex, religion, or the color of one's skin. I'd like to know how the human rights of Hispanic immigrants or Blacks are observed in the United States. Look at California, Florida, New York. Could they say what I have just said? They can exert pressure and muster votes to condemn us, but they are following a selective policy toward us, and we do not feel guilty.
Few places guarantee human rights as Cuba does -not just in word but in deed. Very few - if anyone -among those who condemn us on the basis of human rights has any moral standing whatsoever to do so. That's a point I wanted to be sure to make, since we have spoken of struggle, of ethics, and of morality.
We are poor, but we have dignity. We are not ashamed of our poverty. We would be ashamed to be rich as a result of theft, of exploitation, of corruption. We would be ashamed to become rich that way.
The Special Period and rectification
Barnes: We'd like to ask you one question about the
Special Period. We've followed developments in Cuba in
recent years closely and written about them. One thing we've
noticed is that workers and youth in the United States who
look to the revolution often seem to draw a sharp divide
between the Special Period of the 1990s and the
rectification process that began in the latter half of the
1980s.(24) We've tried to explain that this is not
accurate -that the political rearming of the revolution that
was at the heart of rectification, the place of Che and the
reconquering of a truly communist course, are all deeply
connected with the capacity of the Cuban people and youth to
understand and meet the challenges of the Special Period.
We shouldn't look at the efforts to overcome the crisis of the Special Period as just an economic matter, we've explained. Che never looked at anything that way. He always pointed to the connections between economics and politics that were central to advancing the transition toward socialism.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces has a key role in the struggle to confront the Special Period. The army not only guarantees every Cuban a rifle, a grenade, and a land mine to defend the revolution, but has also set an example in production and discipline. As you remarked in answering a previous question, the army is very close to the people.
No one who has been here in Cuba for the last three weeks during the party congress and the solemn ceremony in Santa Clara you described earlier - as Martín and Mary- Alice have been for most of that period, and as I've been for the past week - could fail to recognize the popular affirmation of the communist course of Fidel and Che registered in these events. No one could confuse Cuba with what was presented as socialism for so long in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. No one could fail to see the deep connection between moving forward in the Special Period and preparing new generations in Cuba for their revolutionary internationalist role in the world that is coming.
So, we would like to hear any of your views that would help us better understand the challenges of the Special Period, the place of the army in it, and its connection to the political course that Che and Fidel fought for and exemplify.
Fernández: If you look at the newspapers in Cuba dated April 20, 1986, you'll find Fidel's speech from the day before, entitled "The Rectification of Errors and Negative Tendencies."(25) It was given at the main rally on the anniversary of Playa Girón, April 19, 1986.
No one at that time was thinking about the fall of socialism - the collapse not of the ideas of socialism, but of the methods used in the work, in the goals of the parties claiming to be constructing socialism. For me, socialism remains the same today as it was in the 1980s - a just idea, one that seeks to create a society that will eliminate inequalities and make human beings the central element, the reason for its existence.
But we had copied certain things, believing that those who had seventy years of experience were doing them well.
For a number of years, however, we had begun to see things that did not really lead to the objectives we were pursuing. Fidel had understood that the policies being followed here in Cuba not only on the economic level but in many other areas were deeply flawed. We had copied and imitated, and were carrying out many things we should not have been doing.
Our party has always been very much linked to the masses. In Cuba, for someone to be taken into the Communist Party, that person has to be approved by the collective decision of both members and nonmembers at their workplace. It is a highly selective process, based on the qualities, merits, and prestige of the individual.
I am speaking of 1986. The collapse of the socialist camp did not begin to become visible until 1988 or 1989. It is natural to think that everything took place within the framework of a single conception of perfecting things. But clearly the Special Period gave rise to very concrete conditions that implied there had to be modifications in some of the actions we had taken within the rectification process.
We lost 85 percent of our trade overnight. We used to get 14 million tons of fuel, a figure that was reduced to zero. We used to get spare parts, transportation equipment, machinery for our factories, cereals, and other food products. We used to export sugar, nickel, and other products at mutually advantageous prices - at what I would call just prices. If the price of machinery or chemical products went up, so too would the price of the products or raw materials we were exporting over there. A just exchange between rich and poor.
This is a world in which the rich countries, the rich societies, tend to become richer, despite the fact that there are also poor people there. And the poor societies are becoming poorer and poorer. This is what is happening in Africa, and to a large degree in Latin America.
So we took measures. I remember when the minister of the armed forces [Raúl Castro] invited the central leaders of the government to a meeting of criticism and self-criticism, pointing concretely to what we needed to rectify and modify.
The FAR was the first to make these rectifications. With Raúl's leadership capacity, his capacity as a statesman, and his energy and firmness in putting forward ideas, he carried out genuine transformations in the FAR. The FAR today is largely self-sufficient, with the exception of sugar and salt, producing 80 to 90 percent of everything it consumes. It cultivates land and raises livestock. And the FAR pays for what it buys - it doesn't simply have land that it tills with fertilizer, fuel, and fodder it is given. It implements rigorous methods and economic controls.
The FAR has shown in practice the levels of efficiency that can be attained. The Youth Army of Labor, made up of young people called up for service, has shown that it is a highly productive and efficient force.
In other words, the army, the armed forces, sets an example. When I use the word "army," it is because the Rebel Army was the soul, the seed, the nucleus around which all the various armed institutions were created in Cuba. It has shown that sí se puede - "it can be done" - as Raúl says. There are some people, when faced with difficulties - those without initiative - who say, "No, it can't be done." Raúl has shown that, "yes, it can be done." And he began preaching this by example.
That's the way things are with the armed forces. The armed forces continue to provide training, maintaining their capacity for combat - I would say they have increased it. At the same time, they are producing, feeding themselves, and in some cases providing something additional for the state.
I, of course, don't see the Special Period as a consequence of rectification. But I do see it as linked to rectification, in the effort to find the methods, to find the correct course to follow, to find solutions that the country needs to emerge victorious.
--NOTES--
1. Secretos de generales comprises interviews by veteran
Cuban journalist Luis Báez with 41 top military officers of
Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces, including Fernández. It
was published in 1996 by Si-Mar publishers in Havana.
2. On March 10, 1952, Fulgencio Batista organized a military coup against the government of Carlos Prío and canceled scheduled elections. Batista was a retired Cuban army general who had been strongman in successive governments in Cuba from 1934 - in the wake of a revolutionary upsurge that toppled dictator Gerardo Machado - until 1944. As the Cuban bourgeoisie and their Yankee patrons reconsolidated power following the initial battles of late 1933, Batista bought off most of the insurgent political leaders, using repression against those who resisted.
Following the 1952 coup, with support from Washington Batista imposed a brutal military dictatorship that lasted until January 1, 1959. On that date Batista fled the country as his military and police forces crumbled in face of the victories won by the advancing Rebel Army commanded by Fidel Castro and the growing popular support for the July 26 Movement, culminating in a revolutionary general strike.
3. In November 1954 the Batista regime held an election to provide legal cover for the March 1952 coup. The only other candidate running, Ramón Grau San Martín, whose candidacy had given legitimacy to Batista's maneuver, backed out of the race the day before the election, leaving Batista as the sole candidate.
4. The Revolutionary Armed Forces was established in October 1959, consolidating under a single command structure the Rebel Army, as well as the Rebel Air Force, the Revolutionary Navy, and the Revolutionary National Police.
5. The Rebel Army conducted the 1956-58 revolutionary war against the Batista regime from a base in the Sierra Maestra mountains of eastern Cuba.
6. Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Joseph was proclaimed king of Spain in 1808 following Francés conquest of that country. A popular war of resistance within Spain laid the basis for the defeat of the French forces, who were finally driven out in 1813. In a series of articles on the Spanish revolution of 1854 written for the New York Daily Tribune, Karl Marx drew lessons from the earlier peasant-based resistance to French occupation. See "Revolutionary Spain," in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, vol. 13, esp. pp. 400-439.
7. Girón is the name Cubans used to designate the April 1961 battle during which Cuba's militia and its Revolutionary Armed Forces defeated a U.S.-organized invasion by 1,500 Cuban mercenaries. The counterrevolutionaries landed at the Bay of Pigs on Cuba's southern coast on April 17 and planned to declare a provisional government to appeal for direct U.S. intervention. Within 72 hours, however, the invaders had been defeated; the last of them surrendered at Playa Girón (Girón Beach) on April 19.
8. In the face of escalating preparations by Washington for an invasion of Cuba in the spring and summer of 1962, the Cuban government signed a mutual defense agreement with the Soviet Union. In October 1962 President Kennedy demanded the removal of Soviet nuclear missiles installed in Cuba following the signing of that pact. Washington ordered a naval blockade of Cuba, stepped up its preparations to invade, and placed U.S. armed forces on nuclear alert. Cuban workers and farmers mobilized in the millions to defend the revolution. Following an exchange of communications between Washington and Moscow, on October 28 Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, without consulting the Cuban government, announced his decision to remove the missiles.
9. On February 24, 1996, three Cessna planes organized by the Florida-based counterrevolutionary organization Brothers to the Rescue were warned several times that they had violated Cuban air space. Having ignored these warnings, two of the planes were shot down, and four men on board were killed. Cuba had experienced ten other incursions of its air space within the previous twenty months, as well as flotillas organized by Brothers to the Rescue to violate Cuba's territorial waters. "We have confronted this provocation with great patience," the Cuban government stated earlier in a July 1995 communiqué. "The responsibility for whatever happens will fall, exclusively, on those who encourage, plan, execute, or tolerate these acts of piracy."
10. In 1975 Cuban forces were sent to Angola, at the request of the newly independent government there, to defend that country against a South African invasion. Between then and the departure of the last Cuban troops in 1991, more than 300,000 Cuban volunteers fought there; 2,000 were killed. The decisive moment came with the defeat of the South African army at the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in 1988. African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela said in 1991 that Cuba's role in defeating the apartheid army constituted "a turning point in the struggle to free the continent and our country from the scourge of apartheid." In Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro, How Far We Slaves Have Come! (Pathfinder, 1991), p. 20.
11. In 1977 Cuban troops were sent to Ethiopia, at the request of its government, to help train its forces to beat back a U.S.-supported invasion by Somalia, which was seeking to turn back the revolution that toppled the regime of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974 and initiated a land reform that broke up the vast estates of the ruling classes.
12. The high-flying U.S. U-2 spy plane was downed over Cuba on October 27, 1962. For more on this incident, see the interview with FAR Division General Enrique Carreras, in the Militant, July 6, 1998.
13. The billboard, which faces the building that houses the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana, says: "Imperialist gentlemen, we are not the least bit afraid of you."
14. Clark, who signed the armistice in July 1953 ending the Korean War, wrote that he "had gained the unenviable distinction of being the first United States Army commander in history to sign an armistice without victory."
15. In the early 1960s, small bands of counterrevolutionaries, armed and financed by Washington, carried out sabotage and other operations against the revolution, primarily in the Escambray mountains of south central Cuba.
16. Elections to the municipal assemblies of People's Power, Cuba's local government bodies, were held October 19, 1997, with a second round October 26 in districts where no candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote. Municipal elections are held every two and a half years.
17. Che Guevara's remains were found in Bolivia in July 1997, together with those of six other revolutionary combatants from Bolivia, Cuba, and Peru. All were killed in the course of the guerrilla campaign led by Guevara to topple the military dictatorship in Bolivia and link up with rising revolutionary struggles elsewhere in Latin America, especially in the Southern Cone. The remains of the seven combatants were brought back to Cuba, where hundreds of thousands of Cuban workers and youth mobilized to pay tribute to their example and to express determination to remain true to that revolutionary course. At the October 17 funeral in Santa Clara, where the remains were buried, Cuban president Fidel Castro told participants that he viewed "Che and his men as reinforcements, as a detachment of invincible combatants that this time includes not just Cubans. It includes Latin Americans who have come to fight at our side and to write new pages of history and glory." Castro's speech is available in the booklet Celebrating the Homecoming of Ernesto Che Guevara's Reinforcement Brigade to Cuba: Articles from the Militant newspaper on the 30th anniversary of the combat waged in Bolivia by Che and his comrades, distributed by Pathfinder Press. It was printed in the October 26, 1997, issue of Granma International.
18. In June-July 1989, four high-ranking officers of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and Ministry of the Interior were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for hostile acts against a foreign state, drug trafficking, and abuse of office. The most prominent among them was Arnaldo Ochoa, a division general in the Cuban army who had smuggled ivory and other goods while heading Cuba's mission in Angola and established contacts with Pablo Escobar and other major international drug dealers. At the same trial, ten other Cuban army and Ministry of the Interior officers were convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging from ten to thirty years.
19. Before being named minister of the interior, Army Corps General Abelardo Colomé was deputy minister of defense and first substitute for the minister, Raúl Castro.
20. Camilo Cienfuegos, a commander of the Rebel Army, was named chief of staff following the victory over Batista in January 1959. His plane was lost at sea in October 1959 while he was returning to Havana from a mission to combat a counterrevolutionary mutiny in Camaguey led by Hubert Matos.
21. On July 9, 1989, Cuba's Council of State reviewed the death sentences and all twenty-nine members, including Fernández, voted to ratify them. Fernández was minister of education at the time. The entire proceedings of the Council of State meeting, at which every single member spoke, were telecast throughout Cuba. A documentary record of the case of Ochoa and others convicted with him - including remarks from the Council of State meeting by each of its members - can be found in Case 1/1989: End of the Cuban Connection (José Martí Publishing House, Havana, 1989).
22. Cuban Communist Party leader José Ramón Balaguer gave the keynote address at the October 21-23, 1997, international workshop in Havana that Barnes and Waters had just participated in. Balaguer, who is head of the Central Committee's Department of International Relations, joined the Rebel Army in 1958, fighting in the Second Eastern Front.
23. This course also netted many enemy weapons for the Rebel Army. At the opening of the Batista regime's unsuccessful "final offensive" against the revolutionary forces in late May 1958, for example, the Rebel Army had only 200 usable rifles. Following the defeat of the government forces at the Battle of El Jigue in mid-July, according to Ernesto Che Guevara in his Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War, Batista's army "left 600 weapons in our hands, including a tank, 12 mortars, 12 tripod machine guns, over 20 machine guns, and countless automatic weapons; also, an enormous amount of ammunition and equipment of all sorts, and 450 prisoners, who were handed over to the Red Cross when the campaign ended." Guevara's account is published by Pathfinder Press.
24. The Special Period is the term used in Cuba for the extremely difficult economic conditions the Cuban people have faced since the early 1990s, and the policies the leadership has implemented to defend the revolution. With the disintegration of the regimes of the Soviet bloc that previously accounted for 85 percent of Cuba's foreign trade, much of it on terms favorable to Cuba, the island was brutally thrust deeper into the world capitalist market. The sudden break in trading patterns - which took place as the world capitalist crisis intensified, and has been exacerbated by the ongoing economic warfare organized by Washington - led to the most severe economic crisis in Cuba since 1959. By 1996, however, through the efforts of Cuban working people, the decline in industrial and agricultural production bottomed out. Shortages of food and other essentials, though still severe, have begun to be eased.
The rectification process in Cuba between 1986 and the beginning of the 1990s marked a turn away from increasing reliance on the system of economic management and planning used in one variant or another throughout the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Policies copied from those countries had become more and more dominant in Cuba throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. At its height, rectification took on the character of a growing social movement led by Cuba's most conscious and disciplined working people. As the economic and political crisis accelerated from 1990 on, many of the special measures associated with the rectification process, such as the spread of volunteer work brigades to build badly needed housing, had to be shelved.
25. For other speeches from this period by Castro, see "Cuba's Rectification Process: Two Speeches by Fidel Castro," in New International no. 6 and In Defense of Socialism (Pathfinder, 1989).